Biography of Tito Livio Burattini (1617-1681)

Tito Livio Burattini (see the calculating machine of Burattini) was born in a noble family in Agordo, a small mining town in northern Italy, on March 8th, 1617. He studied in Padua and Venice, winning a comprehensive knowledge of mathematics and physical sciences, architecture and others.

Burattini early became a travelling scholar and in 1637 he went abroad to Egypt, where he stayed until 1641, as an assistant of the English mathematician and astronomer John Greaves (1602-1652) with his famous work on the pyramids. During this period they measured many pyramids, obelisks and monuments, trying to classify them, and drew up plans of several towns, including Alexandria, Memphis and Heliopolis.

After returning to Europe in 1641, Burattini stayed initially for some time in Germany, but in 1642 was invited to serve at Polish Royal Court. He accepted the proposal and settled in Poland with his brother Filippo. In 1645 he returned to Italy, then went for a year to Egypt, before to settle permanently in Poland in 1647. Burattini lived in Poland up to his death, serving to the 4 Polish Kings—Władysław IV, Jan II Kazimierz, Michał Korybut and Jan III Sobieski as an architect, engineer, mechanic, diplomat, etc. He carried out experiments of optics and astronomy, manufactured lenses for microscopes and telescopes, constructed devices of various types, designed several important buildings, took several diplomatic (several diplomatic missions with Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga) and military missions.

In 1650 Burattini was appointed as a court architect and builder of the royal palace at Krakow suburb Kazimierzowski (see the photo bellow). He carried out also restoration works at Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw. In Ujazdowie he arranged a observatory, in which he discovered spots on Venus in 1665.

In 1650 Burattini was appointed as the builder and architect of the royal palace in Krakow, Poland

In 1658 Burattini received the lease of the royal mints in Krakow, Ujazdów, Vilnius and Brest-Litovsk, which drew substantial profits (but later will bring him a charge of embezzlement).

In 1647 Burattini sent to the Polish King a treatise (Dragon Volant, a flying dragon, see the sketch below) with drawings os a flying dragon—a complex ornithopter, trying to arose his interest and to be sponsored. Despite the difficult for Poland wartime, the King show particular interest, ordering a working model to be produced and in the same 1647 a 150 cm model, carrying a cat as a passenger, was demonstrated before the Polish Court. Burattini was granted 500 talers to produce a full-size machine. The machine was ready in May, 1648, provided with 4 pairs of wings, mounted in tandem and a large folding parachute. The machine had a crew of three, and obviously no one can suggest that it really flew, despite of the fact, that Burattini even maintained, that he would fly from Warsaw to Constantinople (some 1700 km) inside 12 hours:-) Despite this funny statement, most historians believe, that Dragon Volant is the most important milestone in the development of "heavier-than-air" flying machines between Leonardo Da Vinci in the end of 15th century and Sir George Cayley in the early 1800s.

A sketch from the treatise Dragon Volant by Burattini

In his book Misura Universale, published in 1675, Tito Livio Burattini first suggested the name meter as the name for a unit of length. He chose the word meter after metron, a Greek word for measure. Burattini's meter was a universal unit of measurement, based on the length of a pendulum, beating one second. He named this unit metro catholico, which simply means universal measure. Burattini actually was not the first to propose the adoption of a decimal metric system, but he was the first to advance a project that received wide attention and was the one, who first suggested the name meter for the basic unit of length.

In Poland Tito Livio Burattini managed to establish himself not only as a scientist, but also as a businessman and diplomat, to become a rich and powerful man, to began a family. His end however was miserable—he died poor and sick (it seems even that he lacked the money for the funeral) on 17th of November, 1681, in Vilnius, Poland.